Purple Rock Watch-Along: Survivor Nicaragua Viewing Plan

We are starting our Nicaragua watch-along this Thursday and this is how it will sear the living skin from my eyeballs:

I will be doing a weekly watch of Survivor :Nicaragua starting January 5th. I will be doing this in live-blog format, but not actually live-blogging at a set time. So you don’t have to worry about coordinating watch times or anything like that.

Here’s the order I will discuss the episodes:

January 5th: Episodes 1-2
January 12th: Episodes 3-5
January 19th: Episodes 6-7
January 26th: Episodes 8-10
11 is a recap episode and will not be watched because why do that to ourselves?
February 2nd: Episodes 12-14
February 9th: Episodes 15 plus reunion

Note: This is my first time watching this season, so if you are rewatching it, please be careful with the spoilers. I mean I know who wins, and I know about the quitters, and I know that this season generally sucks. But I want to experience the suck live and as it is happening so I can give you a fair and accurate portrait of its sucking. Or maybe I’ll actually like it?

I’ll instead be finishing up my first watch Micronesia (Jason just went home- I was very upset that when production hid a special idol just for Jason they didn’t make it a fvcking stick), and then conducting my first watch of Heroes v. Villains.

I’m especially excited because HvV is the one season that I’ve really tried to avoid spoilers on. I mean, I’m not going to be shocked by the winner or anything- but I’m not going to be watching knowing the turning points of the season from episode one.

Micronesia has been highly entertaining (I mean, except when it was expecting me to care about the Fans), but the biggest shocks have been things like “Oh, James gets med-evaced at seven? I thought he got voted out at seven” and “oh, that’s Alexis? I thought that was Natalie” and “OH MY GOD WHY IS EVERYONE ON THIS SEASON FAWNING OVER OZZIE?!?!? OZZIE IS TERRIBLE!”

Oh I’m 100% coming to the threads, I just haven’t decided if I’m watching. I have a new hour and 20 minute commute so I might see if I can download it to my tablet and watch one day on the way in. But it seems like an extra torture.

Mine’s just straight driving for 2 hours in the morning and less at night depending on what time I leave. At 10 p.m., its an hour and 30 but that’s only because I drive a little slower due to the dark back roads and deer.

I already rewatched it once when some wanker on RHAP did a long bit on how great and underrated it was. That guy was an idiot, and I will never watch Nicaragua again. There are some bottom tier seasons that I could stomach watching again, like Redemption Island, Jesus Island, or Gabon. But Nicaragua is a bridge too far.

I have put a lot of thought into whether Nicaragua or South Pacific is worse and settled on South Pacific. I feel a lot of their flaws cancel each other out (Brandon/NaOnka, Bad twists/Redemption Island, etc.). I personally decided that Nicaragua at least kept me wondering where it was going, while South Pacific was a below average Pagonging (which a bunch of other seasons did better). I can see people preferring South Pacific though (they are really close in my rankings).

I will go to my deathbed proclaiming Thailand the worst season of all time; I am legitimately surprised that it did not get Survivor cancelled.

If you’re close to having seen every season I say go for it. It’s still recognizably Survivor, the show we love. Yes it’s the worst season, but being the worst season of Survivor is like being the dumbest Jeopardy winner. It’s solidly in last place not because it’s so much worse than the other bottom-tier seasons, but because it lacks their redeeming qualities (at least Gabon was funny, at least Coach didn’t win South Pacific, etc.).

I went through the completionist period last summer (although I still need to watch 1 episode of Palau). Australia filled me with joy, Africa was a huge disappointment, Thailand nearly broke me (way worse than Nicaragua), Marquesas impressed me by not being Thailand, Amazon and All Stars gave me a nostalgia boost, and Pearl Islands was the perfect end cap.

I would say go ahead and watch the season if you already have Hulu or can rent it from a library just to get rid of the nagging feelings of incompleteness.

At work I had to write a very long application for Fairtrade status and I had to type the word Nicaragua a gazillion times because we partner with a Nicaraguan town and their coffee plantation. I could do this because Survivor taught me how to spell Nicaragua.
This is the sole redeeming feature of Survivor Nicaragua.

I’m very excited for this. Nicaragua is the last season of Survivor that I haven’t seen a minute of (I never finished Thailand and won’t anytime soon). I’m curious to see if it lives up to the hype as an incredibly shitty season that even superfans stay away from. Well, until I realize that it does live up to the hype and I’m left watching shitty television.

I actually think the cast for Worlds Apart had potential, it’s just that the ones that sucked were the ones that made it furthest in the game. If it had been a season dominated by Max, Shirin, Jenn, Hali, Lindsey, and Vince- with Joe and Mike making the challenges mildly interesting- maybe it could’ve been good. I would’ve even tolerated Dan getting punked and dragged to the end as a goat.

And Dan’s sexist idiocy. But I was glad Vince left early. I liked Carolyn (she was expected to be the first out due to age but she smartly trailed So and found the idol herself) early on until she turned on Shirin and joined Rodney’s side.

I know The AO DVD had one that discussed why some of them brought the luxury item that they did including the fact that Kucha kept some of Kimmi’s scrabble game because they used the tile holders to eat and Alicia brought a comb because if she didn’t, her hair would look like Chaka Khan’s.

For those who HAVE seen this season… Would anybody be open to playing a fantasy game?

But obviously, since we know who wins etc., the scoring would need to be different for things which we’ll need to count… for example “# of confessionals” and “# of times physically holding a piece of tree mail”

Okay there a couple of a random things that I remember about this from second hand knowledge that deserve to be shared at certain points during this season so…

Something to keep in mind: Before this season started there was a online vote to vote a person on an audition tape they sent in. There were ten finalists and the winner would be put on this season. So that’s right we put someone on this delightful cast. Can you guess who we voted on the cast of Nicaragua? That right it was Jimmy T. . This is a fact that should be kept in mind for the season.

I know we will never find out, but I want to know where Shane fell. I heard some rumors that he was 12th, but I don’t want to believe it because that is just heartbreaking. I much rather him be 16 out of 16 instead edged out yet again.

I’ve been trying this summer (it is summer here) to give some love to not so famous and well-liked seasons of Survivor (I’ve watched ~20 seasons, but mostly famous and recent ones), and try to see how bad it gets. So far it has been an utter failure, as I loved Fiji (yes, it is better MvsX—and 2nd Chances), and although not as good, I’ve been loving so far Panama/Exile Island (although I haven’t finished it).

I was planning to go down step-by-step and try seasons like Gabon and Thailand next, but I guess I’ll take this chance and try going with you straight for the bottom of the well.

Micronesia may be a little bit because my friend is currently watching Worlds Apart, then we are watching Cambodia (call it my second chance on that season), then she is watching KR. After that, then I am watching Amazon, Pearl Islands, Panama,Cook Islands, and then Micronesia. What I am saying is that it might be a bit before we get there.

Just 2 seasons and 5 more episodes away! Had I not told her that 31 was a returnee season, she would have rage quitted on me. She watched “Bring the Popcorn” and couldn’t bear to watch another second more at all yesterday. She instead played Pokemon Snap.

Nicaragua is a bad season, but it did not leave enough of an impression on me to give me the sort of hatred for it a lot of others feel. Samoa was my “Do I even want to continue watching this?” season and Thailand was the singlemost unpleasant experience I have gotten from the series. This one went in one ear and out the other for me.

I have the opposite reaction. I find a season with a dominant psychopath to be reasonably entertaining. Neither Thailand or Samoa are top tier to me, but I enjoyed both of them reasonably well. On a rewatch, Samoa even got bonus points from me for crushing the dreams of their psychopath.

I’m looking forward to reading about the rewatch without actually participating in the rewatch XD
Nicaragua is one of only, I believe, 4 seasons that I did not watch as they originally aired. I took a break from Samoa through Redemption Island and miraculously missed the entire Russell Hantz arc before resuming at South Pacific. Of course I’ve seen all of the seasons now, but HvV is really the only season from that stretch that I regret not watching live.